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Ignatian Spirituality in Scotland, No. 5
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IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY IN SCOTLAND
General Editor:
Eileen Cassidy snd, Ignatian Spirituality Centre, 35 Scott Street, Glasgow, G3 6PE
E-mail:
Editorial
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he “retreat season” - the season of 5 to 8 day silent and individually guided retreats - may not yet be fully launched in Scotland, but it would be a mistake to think that retreats are limited to this season. ‘Out of season’ retreats,which canbe as short as 1 or 2 days and with various forms, feature throughout the year. Besides being for some a potential ‘stepping stone’ towards the longer silent retreat, like the latter, and like retreats in daily life (RDLs), they meet a growing desire for ‘space apart’, a growing need to reflect on one’s life in relationship to ultimate values, and a growing thirst for that knowledge of God and communion with God that is the fruit of silent prayer and is a foretaste of eternal life.
Interpersonal relationships change us- for better or worse. We imbibe and are affected bythe values of thoseto whom we are close; and this is as true of our relationship with God/Jesus as it is of our relationships with one another. So when Jesus says, ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments’, he is not imposing on us an arbitrary obligation. Rather he is making a simple statement that the expression of our relationship with him will reflect the expression of his relationship with the Father. Jesus describes his relationship with the Father in the words:“Whatever I see the Father doing, I do.” For us, then, it will be a case of, ‘Whatever I see Jesus doing, I do.’
How does this work out in practice? What are the values of God that we imbibe? As Christians we are fortunate to see those values incarnated in Jesus; and in Jesus we see one of God’s unchanging valuesthat is of paramount importance – a passionate love for each human being, especially for the poor and marginalised, for victims of oppression and injustice. Why, we might ask? This is certainly not because they are more deserving of God’s love, but becausethey are in greater need of that love, in much the same way as a sick, vulnerable or wayward child is more in need of a parent’s immediate love, care and attention than is the good or fully healthy child. To be in communion with God, therefore, is to have a passionate love for each human being, especially for those in greatest need, and to express this in action that respectsand enhancesthe dignity of those served and is appropriate to our circumstances.
This issue of the newsletter touches on the provision and use of retreat opportunities, as people try to satisfy that thirst for God that is deep within each one of us; on people so changed by their encounter with God that they reach out to those in need; on practical and dignified love for the poor; and on the poor exchanging gifts, quite unselfconsciously, with those who reach out to help them. They do this by receiving their guests with the ‘hospitality, welcome, generosity and joy’ of God, and thus they minister as they are served.
There is also an account of retreatgivers exploring with a planetary scientist the impact of contemporary astronomy on our understanding of God and the universe; and of those already trained in Ignatian spirituality gathering for ongoing nourishment.And there is food for reflection, and information about forthcoming events. There is much for which we can say -
In this spirit we wish each of you a very happy Easter!
- - Eileen Cassidy, snd
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Epiphany Group: Team Co-ordination of ‘Retreats in Daily Life’ in and around Edinburgh 2010/11
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n the Summer of 2010 the Epiphany Group approached Elizabeth White, asking if she would co-ordinate a team to encourage and oversee Retreats in Daily Life (RDLs) in and around Edinburgh. By September four of us had joined Elizabeth to form the beginnings of the proposed team. We have a twofold role: to explore new opportunities for RDLs and to support others who wish to run such retreats.One of our first tasks was to reflect together on such issues as what constitutes an RDL supported by as opposed to in association with the Epiphany Group;RDL models; resourcing RDLs; and relevant individual gifts and their use.
In this first year, and while finding our feet, we decided to explore one new initiative and to continue with the two ‘City Churches’ RDLs which take place in Edinburgheach year. With a desire toreach more local communities, we used a local nursery as the base for our first week-long Pre-Lent Retreat, ‘Ready for Spring, Ready for Lent’. The retreat attracted 12 participants, and we had 8 guides. Feedback was encouraging, with comments like: “A journey of fulfilment”; “I feel connected to something... a way of being that had become obscured with the busyness of living”.
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As we move towards the next City Churches RDL,we have the support of tradition behind this well established Easter to Pentecost retreat, and we also have the experience gained in our first year as a new team. The retreat will open in St. Mark’s UnitarianChurch, a new connection for us, and will close in St John’s Episcopal Church, Princes Street, with whom we have a long standing connection.
In an attempt to share with others what we ourselves have found useful and inspiring, we have produced a booklet with different methods of prayer, together with scripture, poetry and images for use in this and other RDLs.
We hope that there will be many more opportunities to support parishes and other groups in running this kind of retreat which is often people’s first experience of being accompanied in life and prayer. We would like to thank those who give their time and energy to guide and supervise during RDLs, and we ask youto pray for us as a team as we continue to discern the development of this work.
If you would like to know more, or would like support in running an RDL, or would simply like a copy of the booklet, please contact us .
-- Elizabeth White, Bernadette Campbell
Trudy Shaw, Freda Alexander and Claire Starr.
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Epiphany Group: ‘Sacred Spaces’ Initiative
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ncreasing interest in Quiet Days in the Edinburgh area brought about the launch of Sacred Spaces in Autumn 2010. Since September we have offered four Quiet Days, two in churches in the city, one in Pencaitland in East Lothian and one in Bathgate, West Lothian. The fifth and final event in the series will take place in Dalkeith, Midlothian, on Saturday 14th May.
Each day offers a mixture of silence, guided meditation, individual reflection and creative ideas. We hope the May event will have an outdoor element, weather permitting. We aim to offer those who take part a chance to take time out from the busyness of life and reconnect with God, whether they are newcomers to Ignatian spirituality or practised hands.
Participants so far have told us how much they appreciate the chance to be quiet, to be allowed to rest and to explore things at their own pace, perhaps in fresh ways.
The Sacred Spaces team - Mags Bryan, Sharon Laidlaw and Susan Mansfield - have all benefited from Epiphany Group courses in Edinburgh, and have been involved in leading Quiet Days in other contexts. We are encouraged by our first year, and look forward to where things might lead in the future.
For any more information about the event on 14th May, or about Sacred Spaces in general, please contact us at: .
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Traidcraft Tour to
Costa Rica and
Nicaragua:Musings
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Helen Kinloch grew up on a farm in the heart of beautiful Perthshire, her home for 25 years. Shaped by nature, singing, the Church of Scotland, Scripture Union, Clinical Theology, the Iona Community and people different from herself, she worked in social work and social work training. She was drawn naturally into Ignatian Spirituality some 15 years ago and is now a member of the Epiphany Group and an Associate of the ISC, with a ministry in spiritual accompaniment and retreat guiding. In February she went with Traidcraft to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. This was her first extended time in the developing world.
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ow rich, riotous, delicate and awesome is creation! From big blue butterflies to tiny hummingbirds whose wings beat 60 times per second; from huge sloth slumbering up in the trees to tiny fireflies dancing through the night-time forest; from exotic birds in kingfisher blue, red and green to dull black(birds) with deeply melodic songs matched by the night-time canopy of tuneful cicada music. All in majestic landscapes.
But what of volcanoes and earthquakes, disease-carrying insects and drought from climate change? All are ever present realities, reminding me of the mystery of suffering and that we humans are not in control.
In Nicaragua poverty is palpable. Many people live in wooden shacks and homes made from black polythene. We heard of daily struggles to have clean water, to get children educated and to make a living. We saw many people gleaning: picking coffee beans left behind in the fields after the drying process. How energising then is the deep desire to “make amends” out of being deeply moved to “shame, confusion and sorrow” from my Western complicity in continuing poverty in the world.
Hear the gospel according to pineapple producers. Louis Fernando, with his strong, kindly face, grows Fairtrade organic pineapples in Costa Rica. With feet firmly planted he tells us, “Organic is good for the pineapples, good for the people, good for the ground”.And Jennifer, his young Co-operative Manager, says “I enjoy building bridges between the farmers and markets”.
Contrast that with reports of large commercial pineapple production, also in Costa Rica, where pesticides have leaked into the river causing pollution and illness. Probably the pineapples from Costa Rica for sale in our supermarkets.
We were witnesses of the hard work, hardship and perseverance of Amanda, her husband and 6 year-old daughter who come from Nicaragua to Costa Rica to harvest the heavy, jaggy sugar cane – working under the hot sun from 6am to 4pm. Did they have a shower at the end of the day, with balm for aching limbs and sore hands? I don’t know. But I did learn so much more about the cost of our sugar.
There was no-one to ask about the clay crucifixes with the figure of Christ as a “campesino”. Here surely is Christ crucified in the suffering and deaths of the poor people of Nicaragua over many years of oppression and war.
Hospitality, welcome, generosity and joy enveloped us in a Co-operative high in the mountains of Northern Nicaragua. The women helped us prepare a traditional meal all wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in a pot of boiling water fired by sticks from the surrounding countryside. Delicious! Smiling children sang and danced for us. Their teacher had gone to outlying areas to encourage more children into school, paying from her own resources for the notebooks and pencils their families could not afford.
And Fairtrade? Small farmers receive a fair price for their products whatever is happening on the global market. It has enabled Louis to move to organic production, despite the masses of paper work involved. Through the Fairtrade premium more children are being educated, housing and health care is better, and there is recycling and care of the earth.
I am now standing with one foot in the rich world enmeshed in greed and power, while feeling deeply connected with the developing world in all its poverty and hope. Maybe on a bridge? Or called to be a bridge somehow?
I sing with the Nicaraguan people in their Peasant Mass: “For the world and all its people we address our prayers to God ... [who] will fill the earth with justice when our will and his accord”;and I pray with Ignatius that we have the grace to "desire and know … and choose what ismore for theglory of God".
-- Helen Kinloch
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‘God of Silent Fire’: The Catholic Network for Retreats and Spirituality 2011 Conference
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he CNRS conference 2011 was held at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick. There were more than a hundred participants from retreat centres and spirituality networks across the UK. Tom McGuinness sj, Director of the Ignatian Spirituality Centre in Glasgowiscurrently Chair of the network, and was ably supported in preparation for this successful weekend event by Jim Kirk, an ISC Associate. Three members of the ISC team attended as participants, Eileen Cassidy, Margaret Fielding and Julia Ling.
The conference was entitled ‘God of Silent Fire’ and was led byGuy Consolmagno sj., an American Jesuit who is a research astronomer and planetary scientist. Following vows as a Jesuit brother in 1991 and some initial teaching appointments, he was assigned as an astronomer to the Vatican Observatory. There he also serves as Curator of the Vatican Meteorite Collection, in addition to continuing professional work in planetary science.
Over the weekend he offered us presentations on…
- Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance
- Discarded Images – Christian and Scientific Cosmologies
- Would you Baptise ET? Astrobiology and Salvation
- God and the Techies – being Christian ina Technical World.
And to set us on our way, after suitable preparation, he led us outside at the end of the first evening for a star gazing session. Fortunately we were blessed with a clear sky and beautiful moon!
We had begun that evening by exploring the nature of the scientific enterprise and what it means to be a scientist. Guy described scientists as those who, “look, ask questions, use logic to pull out what you see and weave the results into a story which you then keep re-visiting and testing”.The more we see, the more there is to describe and the more the story extends.
Guy posited that no scientist would bother with the process of science unless he believed in truth, beauty, hope and faith. There is no benefit in faking data. The scientist acts with faith that there are laws to be found and in the hope that gradually they will become known. He described the Universe as, “the creation of someone I love”; and his scientific activity as, “a way of spending time with each other. The Universe is God’s way of playing with us, of having fun with us, surprising us by joy and presence”. He suggested: “Getting to know ‘How God Did It’ ought to be a wonderful way of celebrating God’s grandeur. It’s traditionally been a form of worship that western religion had always embraced, until the late 19th century…when this canard of a split between science and religion took hold”. 1
Guy presented science as a process of constant refinement, guided by the compass of searching for the most simple and elegant solution. An elegant theory should be beautiful and should work.
We reflected on the development of one such theory which emerged from the work of the Belgianpriest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. George Lemaître. In 1931, Lemaître presented to the scientific community his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom' which he described as, “the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation”. This hypothesis latterly became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe - a theory which affirms the notion of the Universe having a beginning. In Lemaître’swork we were offered an example of the ‘insight’ of science and faith intersecting, informing rather than replacing, each other.
Accordingto Consolmagno, “studying the universe engages us in something bigger than ourselves. Science tries to describe, in terms we can only grasp intuitively, things that are beyond our intuition. Physics tries to make sense of the world, so that we might understand the Sense of the World”. What emerges, “is a set of human-made descriptions of how the Universe behaves”. But within the limitations of those descriptions, says Guy, truth can be found and,“the closer it is to the truth, the more beautiful it is”. 1
But how do those of us without a scientific bent or any knowledge of astrophysics relate to these ever expanding discoveries about the cosmos? Well, Consolmagno would invite us to consider,“where else in our lives do we attempt to deal with the ineffable, to describe the indescribable, to make sense of a Universe that at first glance can seem chaotic? 1
One very familiar placeis in the practice of religion and spirituality where there are striking parallels. Religion, he proposes, “can be broken up into various components: the liturgies, the ritual practices where we encounter God like a scientific observer encounters nature; the theology, which tries to develop a theory (beautiful, but limited) of how God relates to us humans; and the moral laws which, like engineering, try to translate our theory into solving practical how-are-we-to-live-our-lives sorts of problems.” 1